Venetian blinds consist of a plurality of horizontal slats. These slats rest on ladders made of cord, fabric tape, or flexible sheets of sheer material. Blinds have a headrail and bottomrail, the bottomrail being either one solid rail or two parallel rails connected by a cord. The blinds have a lift cord or cords, traditionally connected from the bottomrail through route holes in the slats, to a lift mechanism or cord lock in the headrail. In some venetian blinds the lift cords are placed proximate to the front and rear edges of the slats, and tiny notches or slots are made in the slats for the lift cords to pass through from the bottomrail into the headrail. Blinds are raised to stack slats at the top by pulling the lift cords through a cord lock, which locks into place by pulling the lift cords laterally to catch the lock and then back to set the lock. Alternately, an axle driven cord collection system may be used for one or more sets of lift cords in place of a cord lock. In this type of blind as in most venetian blinds when the blind is lowered all of the slats are in an open, horizontal position or in a closed tilted position. The blind cannot have one portion that is open and another portion which is closed unless the owner turns the slats individually. Yet, there has been a demand for blinds in which the upper half of the blind can be open while the lower half of the blind is closed or vice-versa.
One type of blind which has been offered to meet this demand is the so-called bottom-up blind. In this type of blind the slats are stacked on the bottomrail, which typically rests very near the window sill. A movingrail is placed on top of the slats and is connected to a lift cord which runs through the headrail. Pulling the lift cords raises the slats from the bottomrail. Examples of this type of blind are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7408 to Bohrer, U.S. Pat. No. 12,695 to Rose, U.S. Pat. No. 2,223,640 to Kwon and U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,108. to Levert et al. These blinds tend to be very bulky and can be awkward to operate because the movingrail is constantly changing position relative to the operator. None of these blinds allow some of the slats to be in an open horizontal position while other slats are in a closed tilted position. There is a need for a venetian blind which can do this. Ideally, this blind will also require a minimum of additional hardware. Also the blind should be able to utilize the components already commonly used such as cord ladders, fabric tape ladders, or sheer material sheet ladders. Overall, there is still a need for an easily operated, neat-looking venetian type blind with several style options wherein the upper slats can be open while the lower slats are closed or any combination thereof.